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A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT 



A TREE WITH A 
BIRD IN IT: 

A SYMPOSIUM OF CONTEMPORARY 

AMERICAN POETS ON BEING 

SHOWN A PEAR-TREE ON 

WHICH SAT A CRACKLE 



BY 

MARGARET WIDDEMER 

AUTHOR OF "factories." " THE OLD ROAD TO PARADISE," 
"cross CURRENTS," ETC. 



WITH ILLUSTRATIONS BY 
WILLIAM SAPHIER 




NEW YORK 

HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY 






COPYRIGHT, 1922, BY 
HARCOURT, BRACE AND COMPANY, INC. 



PRINTED IN THE U. S. A BY 

THE QUINN ft BODEN COMPANV 

RAHWAY. N. J. 



OCT 24 "22 

5)CUG83807 



THIS IS DEDICATED 

WITH MY FORGIVENESS IN ADVANCE 

TO THE POETS PARODIED IN THIS BOOK 

AND THE POETS NOT PARODIED IN THIS BOOK 



FOREWORD 
By the Collator 

A little while since, I had the fortune to live 
in a house, outside of whose windows there grew 
a pear-tree. On the branches of this tree lived 
a green bird of indeterminate nature. I do not 
know what his real name was, but the name, to 
quote our great exemplar Lewis Carroll, by which 
his name was called was the Grackle. He seemed 
perfectly willing to be addressed thus, and ac- 
cordingly was. 

Aside from watching the Pear-Tree and the 
Grackle, my other principal occupation that win- 
ter was watching the Poetry Society of America 
now and then at its monthly meetings. It oc- 
curred to me finally to invite such members of 
it as cared to come, following many good ex- 
amples, to an outdoor symposium under the tree. 
The result follows. 

Margaret Widdemer. 

P. S.— The tree died. 



TABLE OF CONTENTS 



Foreword : By the Collator 

Jessie B. Rittenhouse . Resignation . . . 
Edwin Markham . . . The Bird with the Wo 
Witter Bynner .... The Unity of Oneness 

Amy Lowell Oiseaurie .... 

Edgar Lee Masters . . . Imri Swasey . . , 

Edwin Arlington Robinson Rambuncto 

Robert Frost The Bird Misunderstood 



Carl Sandburg . . 
Edith M. Thomas . . 

Charles Hanson Towne 
Sara Teasdale . . 
Ezra Pound . . . 
Margaret Widdemer . 
Richard Le Gallienne 

Angela Morgan . 
Conrad Aiken . . . 
Mary Carolyn Davies 



Chicago Memories . 
Frost and Sandburg To 
night .... 

The Unquiet Singer 
At Autumn . 

Rainuv 

The Sighing Tree 

Ballade of Spring Chick 

ens .... 
Oh! Bird! . . . 
The Charnel Bird . 

A Young Girl to < 
Young Bird . 

The Rune of the Nude 



Marguerite Wilkinson 

Aline Kilmer Admiration . . . 

William Rose and 

Stephen Vincent Benet The Crackle of Grog 

Lola Ridge Preenings .... 

Edna St. Vincent Millay Tea o' Herbs . 

John V. A. Weaver . . . The Weaver Bird 

vii 



PAGE 
V 

3 

4 

7 

8 

9 

10 

12 

13 

17 
18 
20 
21 
24 

27 
29 

30 

34 
35 
Z7 

38 
42 
46 
50 



Contents 



PAGE 



David Morton Sonnet : Trees Are Not 

Ships 52 

Elinor Wylie The Crackle Is the Loon 53 

Leonora Speyer . . . . A Landscape Gets Per- 
sonal 54 

CoRiNNE Roosevelt Robin- The Symposium Leading 

SON Nowhere .... 57 

RiDGELY ToRRENCE . . . The Fowl of o Thousand 

Flights .... 59 

Henry van Dyke . . . The Roiling of Henry . 61 
Cale Young Rice .... P anting s .... 6?) 

Bliss Carman The Wild ^5 

Grace Hazard and 

Hilda Conkling . . . They See the Birdie . 67 
Theodosia Garrison . . . A Ballad of the Bird 

Dance of Pierrette 69 

William Griffith . . . Pierrette Remembers an 

Engagement ... 71 

Edgar Guest Ain't Nature Wonderful! 72 

Don Marquis ....... The Meeting of the 

Columns .... 75 

Christopher Morley '. . The Mocking-Hoarse- 

Bird 80 

Franklin Pierce Adams . To a Crackle .... 83 

Thomas Augustin Daly . Carlo the Cardener . . 84 
Vachel Lindsay .... The Hoboken Crackle 

and the Hobo . . 85 

Percy Mackaye ^ . _„ . o- j x 

y T-. Ti (Dies Ilia: A Bird of a 

Josephine Preston Peabody j- Masque .... 89 

Isabel Fiske Conant ) 

Arthur Guiterman . . . A Tree with a Bird in 

It: Rhymed Review 101 



viii 



ILLUSTRATIONS 

FACE 

Edwin Markham 5 

Witter Bynner 6 

Carl Sandburg 15 

Margaret Widdemer 25 

Conrad Aiken 31 

The Benets 39 

Lola Ridge 43 

Edna St. Vincent Millay . . . -47 

Leonora Speyer 55 

Edgar Guest 73 

Don Marquis and Christopher Morley . 77 

Vachel Lindsay 87 



IX 



A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT 



Jessie B. Rittenhouse 

(She steps brightly forward with an air of 
soprano introduction.) 

RESIGNATION 

I look from out my window, 

Beloved, and I see 
A bird upon a pear bough. 

But what is that to me? 

Because the thought comes icy; 

That bird you never knew — 
It's not your bird or pear tree, 

And what is it to you? 



Edwin Markham 

(who, though he had to lay a cornerstone, 
unveil a bust of somebody, give two lectures 
and write encouraging introductions to the 
works of five young poets before catching 
the three-ten for Staten Island, offered his 
reaction in a benevolent and unhurried 
manner.) 

THE BIRD WITH THE WOE 

Poets to men a curious sight afford; 
Still they will sing, though all around are bored; 
But this wise grackle does a kinder thing; 
Silent he's bored, while all around him sing! 



Witter Bynner 

(Prefaced by a short baritone talk on Chinese 
architecture.) 

THE UNITY OF ONENESS 

Celia, have you been to China? 

There upon a mystic tree 
Sits a bird who murmurs Chinese 

Of the Me in Thee. 

'Neath that tree of willow-pattern 
Twice seven thousand scornful go 

Paraphrasers and translators 
Of the long-deceased Li-Po: 

Chinese feehngs swift discerning 
Without all this time and fuss 

Let us eat that bird, thus learning 
Of the Him in Us! 



Amy Lowell 

(Fixing her glasses firmly on the rest of the 
Poetry Society in a way which makes them 
with difficulty refrain from writhing.) 

OISEAURIE 

Glunk! 

I toss my heels up to my head . . . 

That was a bird I heard say glunk 

As I walked statelily through my extensive, expen- 
sive English country estate 

In a pink brocade with silver buttons, a purple 
passementerie cut with panniers, a train, 
and faced with watered silk: 

But it 

Is dead now! 
(The bird) 
Probably putrescent 
And green. . . . 

I scrabble my toes . . . 
Glunk! 



8 



Edgar Lee Masters 

(Making a statement which you may take or 
leave, but convincing you entirely.) 

IMRI SWAZEY 

I was a shock-headed boy bringing in the 

laundry ; 
Why did I try for that damn bird, anyway? 
I suppose I had been in the habit of aiming for 

the pears. 
But I chucked a stone, anyhow, 
And it ricocheted and hit my head. 
And as it hadn't any brains inside the stone 

busted it 
And there I was, dead. 

And dead with me were all the improper things 
I'd got out of the servants about their employers 
Bringing in the laundry; 
But the grackle sings on. 
Sing forever, O grackle! 
I died, knowing lots of things you don't know! 



Edwin Arlington Robinson 

(He mutters wearily in an undertone.) 

RAMBUNCTO 

Well, they're quite dead, Rambuncto; thoroughly 

dead. 
It was a natural thing enough; my eyes 
Stared baffled down the forest-aisles, brown and 

green. 
Not learning what the marks were. Still, who 

learns? 
Not I, who stooped and picked the things that 

day. 
Scarlet and gold and smooth, friend . . . smooth 

enough I 
And she's in a vault now, old Jane Fotheringham, 
My mother-in-law; and my wife's seven aunts, 
And that cursed bird that used to sit and croak 
Upon their pear-tree — they threw scraps to 

him — 
My wife, too. Lord, that was a curious thing I 
Because — "I don't like mushrooms much," I 

said, 
And they ate all I picked. And then they died. 
But . . . Well, who knows it isn't better that 

way? 

10 



It's quieter, at least. . . . Rambuncto — friend — 
Why, you're not going? . . . Well — it's a stupid 

year, 
And the world's very useless. . . . Sorry. . . . 

Still 
The dusk intransience that I much prefer 
Leaves place for little hope and less regret. 
I don't suppose he'd care, to stay to dine 
Under the circumstances. . . . What's life for? 



II 



Robert Frost 

(Rather nervously, retreating with haste in the 
wake of Mr. Robinson as soon as he had 
finished.) 

THE BIRD MISUNDERSTOOD 

There was a grackle sat on our old pear tree — 
Don't ask me why — I never did really know; 
But he made my wife and me feel, for really 

the very first time 
We were out in the actual country, hindering 

things to grow; 

It gave us rather a queer feeling to hear the 

grackle grackle, 
But when it got to be winter time he got up 

and went thence 
And now we shall never know, though we watch 

the tree till April, 
Whether his curious crying ever made song or 

sense. 



12 



Carl Sandburg 

(Striking from time to time a few notes on 
a mouth-organ, with a wonderful effect of 
human brotherhood which does not quite 
include the East.) 

CHICAGO MEMORIES 

Crackles, trees — 

I been thinkin' 'bout 'em all: I been thinkin' 

they're all right: 
Nothin' much — Gosh, nothin' much against God, 

even. 
God made little apples , a hobo sang in Kankakee, 
Shattered apples, I picked you up under a tree, 

red wormy apples, I ate you. . . . 
That lets God out. 
There were three green birds on the tree, there 

were three wailing cats against a green 

dawn. . . . 
'Gene Field sang, ^'The world is full of a number 

of things," 
'Gene Field said, "When they caught me I was 

living in a tree. . . ." 
'Gene Field said everything in Chicago of the 

eighties. 

13 



Now he's dead, I say things, say 'em well, 
too. . . . 

'Gene Field . . . back in the lost days, back 
in the eighties, 

Singing, colyumning . . . 'Gene Field . . . for- 
gotten . . . 

Back in Arkansaw there was a green bird, too, 

I can remember how he sang, back in the lost 
days, back in the eighties. 

Uncle Yon Swenson under the tree chewing 
slowly, slowly. . . . 

Memories, memories! 

There are only trees now, no 'Gene, no eighties 

Gray cats, I can feel your fur in my heart . . . 

Green grackle, I remember now, 

Back in the lost days, back in the eighties 

The cat ate you. 



14 




jAPHice. 



Edith M. Thomas 

(She tells a friend in confidence, after she is 
safely out of it all.) 

FROST AND SANDBURG TONIGHT 

Apple green bird on a wooden bough, 

And the brazen sound of a long, loud row, 

And "Child, take the train, but mind what you 

do — 
Frost, tonight, and Sandburg too!" 

Then I sally forth, half wild, half cowed. 
Till I come to the surging, impervious crowd. 
The wine-filled, the temperance, the sober, the 

pied. 
The Poets that cover the countryside! 

The Poets I never would meet till tonight! 
A gleam of their eyes in the fading light, 
And I took them all in — the enormous throng — 
And with one great bound I bolted along. 

If the garden had merely held birds and flowers! 
But I hear a voice — they have talked for hours — 
"Frost tonight — " if ^twere merely he! 
Half wild, half cowed, I flee, I flee! 

17 



Charles Hanson Towne 

(Who rather begrudged the time he used up 
in going out to the suburbs.) 

THE UNQUIET SINGER 

He had been singing, but I had not heard his 

voice; 
He had been bothering the rest with song; 
But I, most comfortably far 
Within the city's stimulating jar 
Feeling for bus-conductors and for fiats, 
And shop-girls buying too expensive hats, 
And silver-serviced dinners. 
And various kinds of pleasant urban sinners, 
And riding on the subway and the L, 
Had much beside his song to hear and tell. 

But one day (it was Spring, when poets ride 

Afield to wild poetic festivals) 

I, innocently making calls 

Was snatched by a swift motor toward his tree 

(Alas, but lady poets will do this to thee 

If thou art decorative, witty or a Man) 

And heard him sing, and on the grass did 

bide. 

i8 



But my whole day was sadder for his words, 
And I was thinner 

Because, in spite of my most careful plan 
I missed a very pleasant little dinner . . . 
In short, unless well-cooked, I don't like Birds. 



19 



Sara Teasdale 

(Who got Miss Rittenhouse to read it for her.) 

AT AUTUMN 

I bend and watch the grackles billing, 
And fight with tears as I float by; 
O be a fowl for my heart's filling! 
O be a bird, yet never fly! 



20 



Ezra Pound 

(Mailed disdainfully by him from anywhere 
but America, and read prayerfully by a 
committee from Chicago.) 

RAINUV: A ROMANTIC BALLAD FROM 
THE EARLY BASQUE 

... so then naturally 

This Count Rainuv I speak of 

(Certainly I did not expect you would ever have 
heard of him; 

You are American poets, aren't you? 

That's rather awful ... I am the only Ameri- 
can poet 

I could ever tolerate . . . well, sniff and pass. . . .) 

Therefore . . . well, I knew Rainuv. 

(My P. G. course at Penn, you'll remember; 

A little Anglo-Saxon and Basuto, 

But Provencal, mostly. Most don't go in for 
that. . . . 

You haven't, of course . . , What, no Provencal? 

Well, of course, I know 

Rather more than you do. That's my specialty. 

But then — Omnis Gallia est divisa — but no mat- 
ter. 

21 



Not fit, perhaps you'd say, that, to be quoted 
Before ladies. . . . That's your rather amusing 

prudishness. . . .) 
Well, this Rainuv, then, 
A person with a squint like a flash 
Of square fishes . . . being rather worse than 

most 
Of the usual literati 

Said, being carried off by desire of boasting 
That he knew all the mid-Victorians 
Et ab lor bos amies: 
(He thought it was something to boast of.) 

We'll say he said he smoked with Tennyson, 
And — deeper pit — pax v obis cum — went to vespers 
With Adelaide Anne Procter; helped Bob Brown- 
ing elope 
With Elizabeth and her lapdog (said it bit him) 
Said he was the first man Blake told 
All about the angels in a pear-tree at Peckham 

Rye 
Blake drew them for him, he said; they were 

grackles, not angels — 
(Blake's not a mid- Victorian, but you don't know 

better) 
So ... we come, being slightly irritated, to 
facing him down. 

22 



". . . And George Eliot?" we ask lightly. 
^'Roomed with him,'' nodded Rainuv confidently, 
*^At college!" . . . Ah, bos amid bos amid 
Rainuv is a king to you. .... 
Three centuries from now (you dead and messy) 

men whispering insolently 
(Eeni meeni mini mo . . .) will boast that their 

great-grand-uncles 
Were kicked by me in passing. . . . 



23 



Margaret Widdemer 

(Clutching a non-existent portiere with one 
hand.) 

THE SIGHING TREE 

The folk of the wood called me — 

"There sits a golden bird 
Upon your mother's pear-tree — '^ 

But I never said a word. 

The Sleepy People whispered — 

"The bird is singing now." 
But I felt not then like leaving bed 

Nor listening beneath the bough. 

But the wronged world beat my portals — 
"Come out or be sore oppressed!" 

So I threw a stone at the grackle 
And my throbbing heart had rest. 



24 



Richard Le Gallienne 

(Advancing with a dreamy air of there still 
being a Yellow Book.) 

BALLADE OF SPRING CHICKENS 

Spring comes — yet where the dream that glows? 

There only waves upon the lea 
A lonely pear-bough where doth doze 

A bird of green, and merely he: 

Why weave of him our poetry? 
Why of a Crackle need we sing? 

Ah, far another fowl for me — 
I seek Spring Chickens in the Spring. 

Though May returns, and frisking shows 

Her ankles through this white clad tree, 
Alas, old Spring's gone with the rose. 
Gone is all old romance and glee — 
Yet still a joy remains to me — 
Softly our lyric lutes unstring. 

Far from this Crackle we shall flee 
And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! 

Too soon Youth's mss must close, 
(Omar) its rose be pot-pourri: 

27 



What of this bird and all his woes I 

Catulla, I would fly to thee — 

Bright bird of luring lingerie, 
Of bushy bob, of knees aswing, 

This golden task be mine in fee, 
To seek Spring Chickens in the Spring! 

Envoi 

Prince, let us leave this grove, pardie, 

A flapper is a fairer thing: 
Let us fare fast where such there be, 

And seek Spring Chickens in the Spring 1 



28 



Angela Morgan 

(Carefully lifting her Greek robe off the wet 
grass, and patting her fillet with one white 
glove, recites passionately.) 

OH I BIRD I 

I heard a flaming noise that screamed — 
"Man, panting, crushed, must be redeemed! 
Man! All the crowd of him! 
Quiet or loud of him! 
Men! Raging souls of them! 
Heaps of them, shoals of them! 
Hurtling impassioned through fiery-tongued rap- 
ture! 
Leaping for glories all avid to capture 
Bounteous seons of star-beating bliss!" 
I heard a voice cry, and I'm sure it said this: 
Though the cook said the noise was a tree and 

a bird . . . 
But I heard! Gods, I heard! 



20 



Conrad Aiken 

(Creeping mysteriously out of the twilight, 
draped in a complex.) 

THE CHARNEL BIRD 

Forslin murmurs a melodious impropriety 
Musing on birds and women dead aeons 
ago. . . . 
Was he not, once, this fowl, a gay bird in society? 
Can any one tell? . . . After an evening out, 
who can know? 
Perhaps Cleopatra, lush in her inadequate wrap- 
pings, 
Lifted him once to her tatbebs. . . . Perhaps 
Helen of Troy 
Found him more live than her Paris ... a bird 
among dead ones. . . . 
Perhaps Semiramis . . . once ... in a pink 
unnamable joy * * * 

I tie my shoes politely, a salute to this bird in 
his pear-tree; 
. . . What is a pear-tree, after all. . . . What 
is a bird? 
What is a shoe, or a Forslin, or even a Senlin? 

30 



What is ... a what? ... Is there any one 
who has heard? . . . 
What is it crawls from the kiss-thickened, Freud- 
ian darkness, 
Amorous, catlike . . . Ah, can it be a cat? 
I would so much rather it had been a scarlet 

harlot. 
There is so much more genuine poetry in 
that. . . . 



(Note by the Collator: It was, in fact, Fluff urns, the 
Angora cat belonging to the Jenkinses on the corner; and 
the disappointment was too much for Mr. Aiken, who 
fainted away, and had to be taken back to Boston before 
completing his poem, which he had intended to fill an 
entire book.) 



33 



Mary Carolyn Davies 

(Impetuously, with a floppy hat.) 

A YOUNG GIRL TO A YOUNG BIRD 

When one is young, you know, then one can sing 

Of anything: 
One is so young — so pleasurably so — 

How can one know 
If God made little apples, or yet pears, 

Or ... if God cares? 

You are young, maybe, Grackle; that is why 

I want to cry 
Seeing you watch the poems that I say 

To-night, to-day . . . 

This little boy-bird seems to nod to me 

With sympathy: 
He is so young: it must be that is why . . . 

As young as I! 



34 



Marguerite Wilkinson 

(Advancing with sedate courtesy in a long- 
sleeved, high-necked lecture costume.) 

THE RUNE OF THE NUDE 

I will set my slim strong soul on this tree with 
no leaves upon it, 
I will lift up my undressed dreams to the nude 
and ethical sky: 
This bird has his feathers upon him: he shall 
not have even a sonnet: 
Until he is stripped of his last pin-plume I will 
sing of my mate and I! 

My ancestors rise from their graves to be shocked 
at my soul's wild climbing 
(They were strong, they were righteous, my 
ancestors, but they always kept on their 
clothes) 
My mate is the best of all mates alive: his voice 
is a raptured rhyming: 
He chants ''Come Down!" but it cannot come, 
either for him or those! 



35 



My ancestors pound from their ouija-board: my 
mate leaps in swift indignation: 
I must tell the world of their wonders, but I 
must be strong and free — 
Though all sires and all mates cry out in a runic 
incantation, 
My soul shall be stripped and buttonless — 
it shall dwell in a naked tree! 



36 



Aline Kilmer 

(With a certain aloofness.) 

ADMIRATION 

Kenton's arrogant eyes watch the Widdemer pear- 
tree, 

His thistle-down-footed sister puts out her tongue 
at him. . . , 

Kenton, what do you see? That yonder is only 
a bare tree; 

Come, carry Deborah home; she is gossamer- 
light and slim. 

"Aw, mother, but I don't want to!" Kenton re- 
plies with devotion, 

"I've gathered you stones for the bird; come on, 
don't you want to throw 'em?" 

Ah, Kenton, Kenton, my child, who but you 
would have such an emotion? 

But in spite of it I admire you, as you'll see 
when you read this poem. 



37 



The Benet Brothers 

(They sing arm in arm, Stephen Vincent hav- 
ing rather more to do with the verse and 
William Rose with the chorus. Their sister 
Laura is too busy looking for a fairy under 
the tree to add to the family contribution.) 

THE CRACKLE OF CROC 

It was old Yale College 

Made me what I am — 
You oughto heard my mother 

When I first said damn! 
I put a pin in sister's chair, 

She jumped sky-high . . . 
I don't know what'll happen 

When I come to die! 

But oh, the stars burst wild in c glorious crimson 

whanghy 
There was foam on the beer mile-deep, mile-high, 

and the pickles were piled like seas, 
Nxara^s hair was a flapper^s bob that turned to 

a ten-mile tangle. 
And the forests were crowded with unicorns, and 

gold elephants charged up trees! 
38 




5/}p^feR, 



Forceps in the dentist's chair, 

Razors in the lather . . . 
Lord, the black experience 

I've had time to gather . . . 
But I've thought of one thing 

That may pull me through — 
I'm a reg'lar devil 

But the Devil was, too! 

There were thousands of trees with knotholed 
knees that kicked in a league-long rapture. 
Birds green as a seasick emerald in a million- 
mile shrieking row — 
It was sixty dollars or sixty days when the cop 
had made his capture. . . . 
But God! the bun was a gorgeous one, and 
the Faculty did not know! 



41 



Lola Ridge 

(Who apparently did not care for the suburbs.) 

PREENINGS 

I preen myself. . . . 
I . . . 

Always do . . . 

My ego expanding encompasses . . . 

Everything, naturally. . . . 

This bird preens himself . . . 
It is our only likeness. . . . 

Ah, God, I want a Ghetto 

And a Freud and an alley and some Immigrants 

calling names . . . 
God, you know 
How awful it is. . . . 
Here are trees and birds and clouds 
And picturesquely neat children across the way 

on the grass 
Not doing anything 
Improper . . . 

(Poor little fools, I mustn't blame them for that 
Perhaps they never 
Knew How. . . .) 

42 




SflPH'fJ?. 



But oh, God, take me to the nearest trolley line! 
This is a country landscape — 
I can't stand it! 

God, take me away — 
There is no Sex here 
And no Smell! 



45 



Edna St. Vincent Millay 

(Recites in a flippant voice which occasionally 
chokes up with irrepressible emotion, and 
clenching her hands tensely as she notices 
that the Grackle has hopped twice.) 

TEA O' HERBS 

O I have brought in now 

Bergamot, 
A packet o' brown senna 

And an iron pot; 
In my scarlet gown 

I make all hot. 

And other men and girls 

Write like me 
Setting herbs a-plenty 

In their poetry 
(Bergamot for hair-oil, 

Bergamot for tea!) 

And they may do ill now 
Or they may do well, 
(Little should I care now 

What they have to sell — ) 

46 



But what bergamot and rue are 
None of them can tell. 

All above my bitter tea 

I have set a lid 
(As my bitter heart 

By its red gown hid) 
They write of bergamot 

Because I did. . . . 

(From its padded hangers 
They've snatched my red gown, 

Men as well as girls 
And gone down town, 

Flaunting my vocabulary, 
Every verb and noun!) 

And the grackle moans 

High above the pot. 
He is sick with herbs . . . 

And am I not, 
Who have brought in 
Bergamot? 



49 



John V. A. Weaver 

(With a strong note of infant brutality.) 

THE WEAVER BIRD 

Gosh, kid! that bird a-cheepin' in the tree 
All green an' cocky — why, it might be me 
Singin' to you. . . . Wisht I was just a bird 
Bringin' you worms — aw, you know, things I've 

heard 
'Bout me — an' flowers, maybe . . . Like as not 
Somebody'd get me with an old slingshot 
An' I'd be dead . . . Gee, it'd break you up! 
Nothin' would be the same to you, I bet, 
Knowin' my grave was out there in the wet 
And we two couldn't pet no more . . . Say, kid, 
It makes me weep, same as it always did. 
To think how bad you'd feel. . . . 

I got a thought. 
An awful funny one I sorta caught — 
Nobody never thought that way, I guess — 
When I get blue, an' things is in a mess 
I map out all my funeral, the hearses 
An' nineteen carriages, an' folks with verses 



so 



Sayin' how great I was, an' all like that, 

An' wreaths, an' girls with crapes around their 

hat 
Tellin' the world how bad their hearts was broke, 
An' you, just smashed to think I had to 

croak. . . . 

I can't stand that bird, somehow — makes me 

cry. . . . 
The world'll be darn sorry when I die! 



SI 



David Morton 

(Who, being very polite, only thought it.) 

SONNET: TREES ARE NOT SHIPS 

There is no magic in a living tree, 
And, if they be not sea-gulls, none in birds: 
My soul is seasick, and its only words 
Murmur desire for things more like a sea. 
In this dry landscape here there seems to be 
No water, merely persons in large herds, 
Who, by their long remarks, their arid girds, 
Come from the Poetry Society. 

What could be drier, where all things are dry? 
What boots this bird, this pear-tree spreading 

wide? 
Oh, make this bird they all discuss to pie, 
Hew down this tree and shape its planks to ships. 
Send them to sea with these folk nailed inside, 
That I may have great sonnets on my lips! 



52 



Elinor Wylie 

(With an air of admitting the tragic and all- 
important fact.) 

THE GRACKLE IS THE LOON* 

Never believe this bird connotes 

Jade whorls of carven commonness: 

Nor as from ordinary throats 

Slides his sharp song in ice-strung stress. 

He is the cold and scornful Loon, 
Who, hoping that the sun shall fail, 

Steeps in the silver of the moon 

His burnished claws, his chiseled tail. 



53 



Leonora Speyer 

(Speaking, notwithstanding, with unshaken 
poise.) 

A LANDSCAPE GETS PERSONAL 

Beloved. . . . 

I cannot bear that Bird 

He is green 

With envy of My Songs: 

''Cheep! Cheepr 

This Tree 

Has a furtive look 

And the Brook 

Says, "Oh . . . Splash. . . ." 

And the Grass ... the terrible Grass . . . 
It waves at me. . . . 
It is too flirtatious! 

Beloved, 

Let us leave swiftly . . . 

/ fear this Landscape! 
It would vamp me! 

54 



Corinne Roosevelt Robinson 

(Who, having engagements to speak at ten 
unveilings, and nine public schools and 
twelve other symposiums, stayed away, but 
sent this handsome tribute by wire.) 

THE SYMPOSIUM LEADING NOWHERE 

I sing of the joy of the Small Paths 

The paths that lead nowhere at all, 
(Though I never have gone on them nevertheless 

They are admirable, and so small!) 
I go out at midnight in motors 

But, being a Roosevelt, I drive 
Straight ahead on the neatly paved highway, 

For I wish with much speed to arrive. 

Oh, the joy and effulgence of Small Paths 

Surrounded with Birds and with Trees 
I would love to go down on a Small Path 

And sit in communion with these ! 
Oh, Grackle, I yearn to be with you, 

For poetic communion I yearn 
But I have ten engagements to speak in the 
suburbs 

And alas, I've no time to return. 

57 



Oh alas, the undone moments, 

Oh, the myriad hours bereft 
Trying to be twenty people 

And to do things right and left. 
I would sit down by a Small Path 

And would make me a Large Rhyme 
I should love to find my soul there 

But I haven^t got the time! 



S8 



Ridgely Torrence 

(Who felt that the Bird did not sufficiently 
uphold Art.) 

THE FOWL OF A THOUSAND FLIGHTS 

Crackle, Crackle on your tree, 

There's something wrong to-day, 
In the moonlight, in the quiet evening. 

You will rise and croak and fly away; 
Oh, you have sat and listened till you're wild for 
flight 

(And that's all right) 
But you have never criticised a single song 

(And that's all wrong) 
Lo, would you add despair unto despair? 
Do you not care 

That all these lesser children of the Muse 
Shall sing to you exactly as they choose? 

You are ungrateful. Fowl. I wrote a poem. 
Once, in the middle of August, intending to show 

'em 
That you should not 
Be shot: 

What saw I then, what heard? 

59 



Multitudes — multitudes, under the tree they 

stirred, 
And with too many a broken note and wheeze 
They sang what each did please. . . . 

And Thou, 

O bird of emeraldine beak and brow, 
Thou sawest it all, and did not even cackle, 
Crackle ! 



60 



Henry van Dyke 

(Who, although for different reasons, did not 
care for the Crackle either.) 

THE ROILING OF HENRY 

(A Song of the Grating Outdoors) 

Bird, thou art not a Veery, 

Nor yet a Yellowthroat, 
Ne'erless, I knew thy gentle song, 

Long, long e'er I could vote; 
Thou art not a Blue Flower, 

Nor e'en a real Blue Bird; 
Yet there's a moral high and pure 

In all thy liltings heard: 
''Grack-grack-grack-grack'grack'grack — 

Go on and ne'er look back!'' 

The noble tow'rs of Princeton 

Hear high thy pensive trill, 
And eke my ear has heard thee 

The while I fished the rill; 
Thy note rings out at daybreak 

Before I rise to toil; 
Thou counselest Persistence; 

Thy song no stone can spoil ; 
''Grack-grack-grack-grack-grack-grack — 

Go on and ne'er look back!'' 
6i 



Yet, Bird, there is a limit 

To all I've undergone; 
From five o'clock till five o'clock 

Thou'st chanted o'er my lawn; 
I cannot get my work done . . . 

I give thee. Bird, advice; 
If thou wouldst save thy skin alive, 

Let me not warn thee twice, 
^^Grack'grack-grack-grack-grack-grack- 

Go on and ne'er look back!'* 



62 



Cale Young Rice 

(Who came out rather tired from trying to 
choose a new suit, and could not get it off 
his mind.) 

PANTINGS 

Pantings, Pantings, Pantings! 

Gents' immanent furnishings! 
On a mystic tide I ride, I ride. 

Of the clothes of a million springs! 
I take the train for the suburbs 

Or I sweep from Pole to Pole, 
But where is the window that holds them not, 

Gents' furnishings of my soul! 

Pantings, Pantings, Pantings! 

Shirtings and coatings too! 
How can I think of mere birds, nor blink 

In the Cosmic Hullaballoo? 
The hot world throbs with Immenseness, 

The Voidness plunks in the Void, 
And all of it doubtless has something to do 

With Employer and Unemployed! 



63 



Pan tings! Pantings! Pantings! 

Trousers through all the town! 
And the tailors' dummies with iron for tummies 

Smirk in their blue and brown; 
I float in a slithering simoon 

Of fevered and surging tints, 
And my ears are dulled with the mighty throb 

Of the Male Best Dressers' Hints: 

Pantings! Pantings! Pantings! 

My wardrobe, they send it fleet. , . . 
Ah, the I sand the Was and the Never Does. . . . 

And the Cosmos at last complete! 



64 



Bliss Carman 

(Who, incidentally, happened to be correct.) 

THE WILD 

Ho, Spring calls clear a message. . . . 

The Grackle is not green. . . . 
The Mighty Mother Nature 

She knows just what I mean. 

The lilac and the willow 

The grass and violet 
They are my wild companions 

Where I was raised a pet. 

The secrets of great nature 
From childhood I have heard; 

Oh, I can tell a wild flower 
Swiftly from a wild bird; 

And Gwendolen and Marna 

And Myrtle (dead all three . . . 

Among my wildwood sweethearts 
Was much mortality). 



65 



If they my loves returning 

Might gather 'neath these boughs 
(Oh, they would sniff at pear-trees 

Who loved the Northern Sloughs), 

Their wild eternal whisper 
Would back me up, I ween: 

"This bird is not a Crackle: 
A Crackle is not green." 



66 



Grace Hazard and Hilda Conkling 

THEY SEE THE BHIDH^: 

(Mrs. Conkling points maternally.) 
Oh, Hilda! see the little Birdl 
If you will watch, upon my word 
He will come out; a Veery * he 
As like an Oboe as can be: 
He shall be winged, with a tail, 
Mayhap a Beak him shall not fail! 
And I will tell him, ''Birdie, oh, 
This is my Hilda, you must know — 
And oh, what joy, if you but knew — 
She shall make poetry on you!" 

(The Birdie obliges, whereupon Hilda recites 
obediently, while her mother, concealing 
herself completely behind the bird, takes 
dictation.) 

Oh, my lovely Mother, 

That is a Bird: 

Sitting on a Tree. 

I am a Little Girl 



* Note by the Collator : I do not pretend to explain the 
veery-complex of American poets. They all seemed pos- 
sessed to rub it into the poor bird that he wasn't one. 

67 



Standing on the Ground. 
I see the Bird, 
The Bird sees me. 

Bird! 

Color of Grass I 

I love my Mother 
More than I do You! 



68 



Theodosia Garrison 

(Who began cheerfully, but reduced her audi- 
ence to tears, which she surveyed with com- 
placence, by the third line.) 

A BALLAD OF THE BIRD DANCE OF 
PIERRETTE 

Pierrette^ s mother speaks: 

*'Sure is it Pierrette yez are, Pierrette and no 
other? 
(Och, Pierrette, me heart is broke that ye shud 
be that same — ) 
Pertendin' to be Frinch, an' me yer poor ould 
Irish mother 
That named ye Bridget fer yer aunt, a dacent 
Dublin name! 
Ye that was a pious girrl, decked out in ruffled 
collars, 
With yer hair that docked an' frizzed — if Fa- 
ther Pat shud see ! 
Dancin' on a piece o' grass all puddle-holes an' 
hollers, 
Amusin' these quare folk that's called a Pote- 
Society!" 

69 



But it was Bridget Sullivan, 

Her locks flour-sprent, 
That danced beneath the flowering tree 

Leaping as she went. 

"If there's folk to stare at ye ye'll dance for all 
creation 
(Since ye went to settlements 'tis little else I've 
heard), 
Letting yer good wages go to chat of ^inspiration/ 
Flappin' up an' down an' makin' out yez are a 
burrd! 
Sure if ye got cash fer it 'tis little I'd be sayin' 
(Och, Pierrette, stenographin' 'tis better wage 
ye'll get,) 
Sorra wan these long-haired folk has spoke till ye 
o' payin', 
Talkin' of yer art, an' ye a leppin' in the wet! 

But it was Bridget Sullivan^ 

Her head down-bent. 
Went back on the three-thirteen, 

Coughing as she went. 



vAt J> 



70 



William Griffith 
(Who felt for her.) 

PIERRETTE REMEMBERS AN ENGAGE- 
MENT 

Pierrette has gone — but it was not 

Exactly that she lied; 
She said she had to catch a train; 

''I have a date," she cried. 

To keep a sudden rendezvous 

It came into her mind 
As quite the quickest way to flee 

From parties of this kind; 

She went most softly and most soon, 

But still she made a stir. 
For, going, she took all the men 

To town along with her. 



71 



Edgar Guest 

(Who has an air of absolute belief in the True, 
the Optimistic, and the Checkbook. He 
seems yet a little ill at ease among the 
others, and to be looking about restlessly 
for Ella Wheeler Wilcox.) 

AIN'T NATURE WONDERFUL! 

How dear to me are home and wife. 
The dear old Tree I used to Love, 

The Pear it shed on starting life 
And God's Outdoors so bright above I 

For Virtue gets a high reward, 

Noble is all good Scenery, 
So I will root for Virtue hard, 

For God, for Nature, and for Me! 



72 



Don Marquis 

(Who, it appears, refers to departments which 
he and certain of his friends run in New 
York papers. He swings a theoretical bar- 
rel of hootch above his head, and chants:) 

THE MEETING OF THE COLUMNS 

Chris and Frank and I 

Each had a column; 
Chris and I were plump and gay, 
But not so F.P.A.: 

F.P.A. was solemn — 

Not so his Column; 
That was full of wit, 

As good as My Column 
Nearly every bit! 
We sat on each an office chair 

And all snapped our scissors; 
Their things were pretty fair 

But all of mine were Whizzers! 

Frank wrote of Cyril, 

An ungrammatic sinner, 
But I wrote of Drink 

And Chris wrote of Dinner; 

And Frank kept getting thinner 

75 



And we kept getting plump — 
Frank sat like a Bump 

Translating from the Latin, 
Chris wrote of Happy Homes 
I wrote of Alcoholic Foams, 

And we still seemed to fatten; 
Frank wrote of Swell Parties where he had been, 
I wrote of Whisky-sours, and Chris wrote of Gin ! 
But we both got fatter. 
So the parties didn't matter, 
Though F.P.A. he published each as soon as he'd 
been at her. . . . 

F.P.A. went calling 

And sang about it sorely ... 
^^Pass around the shandygaff," says brave old 

Morley! 
F.P.A. played tennis 

And told the World he did. . . . 
/ bought a stein of beer and tipped up the lid! 
Frank wrote up all his evenings out till we began 

to cry, 
But we drowned our envy in a long cool Rye! 

And then we got an invitation, Frank and Chris 

and me. 
To come and say a poem on a Grackle in a Tree: 

76 



But Chris and I'd had twenty ryes, and we began 

to cackle — 
"Oh, see the ninety pretty birds, and every one 

a Grackle! 
A Grackle with a Hackle, 
A ticklish one to tackle 
A tacklish one to tickle . . . 
To ticker . . . 
To licker. . . ." 
And we both began to giggle 

And woggle, and wiggle. 
And we giggled and we gurgled 

And we gargled and were gay . . . 
For we'd had an invitation, just the same as 
F.P.A.I 



79 



Christopher Morley 

(Acting, in spite of himself, as if the Bird 
were his long-lost brother, and locating the 
Crackle, for poetic purposes, in his own 
home.) 

THE MOCKING-HOARSE BIRD 

Good fowl, though I would speak to thee 
With wonted geniality, 
And Oxford charm in my address, 
It's not quite easy, I confess: 
Suaviter in modo's hard 
When poets trample one's front yard, 
And this is such an enormous crew 
That you've got trailing after you ! 
I'd washed my youngest child but four, 
Put the milk-bottles out the door. 
Paid my wife's hat-bill with no sigh 
(Ah, happy wife! Ah, happy II) 
Tossed down (see essays) then my pen 
To be a private citizen. 
Written about that in the Post, 
When lo, upon the lawn a host 
Of Poets, sprung upon my sight 
Each eager for a Poem to write! 

80 



To a less placid bard you'd be 

A flat domestic tragedy, — 

Bird — grackle — nay, I'd scarcely call 

You bird — a mere egg you, that's all — 

Only a bad egg has the nerve 

To poach (a pun! ) on my preserve! 

To P.Q.S. and X.Y.D. 

(Both columnists whom you should see) 

And L.M.N (a man who never 

Columns a word that isn't clever,) 

And B.C.D (who scintillates 

Much more than most who get his rates) 

A thing like this would be a trial. . . . 

It is to me, there's no denial. 

Why, Bird, if they would sing of you, 
Or Sin, or Broken Hearts, or Rue, 
Or what Young Devils they all are. 
Or Scarlet Dames, or the First Star, 
Or South-Sea- Jazz-Hounds sorrowing. 
It would be quite another thing: 
But, Bird, here they come mousing round 
On my suburban, sacred ground, 
And see my happiness — it's flat. 
You wretched Bird, they'll sing of that! 
They'll hymn my Happy Hearth, and later 
The joys of my Refrigerator, 

8i 



Burst into song about the points 
Of Babies, Married Peace, Hot Joints, 
The Jimmy-Pipe I often carol. 
My Commutation, my Rain-Barrel, 
And each Uncontroverted Fact 
With which my poetry is packed . . . 
In short, base Bird, they'll sing like me, 
And then, where will my living be? 



82 



Franklin P. Adams 

(Coldly ignoring the roistering of his friends, 
addresses the Crackle with bitterness:) 

TO A CRACKLE 
(Horace, Ode XVIXXV, p. 23) 

Bird, if you think I do not care 
To gaze upon your feathered form 

Rather than converse with some fair 
Or make my brow with tennis warm; 

If you should think I'd liefer far 

Hear your sweet song than fast be 
driving 

Within my costly motor car 

And in my handsome home arriving, 

If you should think I would be gone 
Far sooner than you might expect 

From off this uncolumnar lawn; 
Bird, you'd be utterly correct! 



83 



Tom Daly 

(Showing the Italian's love of the Beautiful, 
which he makes his own more than the 
Anglo-Saxon dreams of doing.) 

CARLO THE GARDENER 

De poets dey tinka dey gotta da tree, 
Dey gotta da arta, da birda — but me, 
I lova da arta, I lova da flower, 
(Ah, bella fiorettaf) I waita da hour: 
I mowa da grass, I rake uppa da leaf — 
I brava young Carlo — Maria! fine t'ief ! 
I waita 
Till later. 

Da poets go homa, go finda da sup', 
I creep by dis tree and I digga her up, 
(Da Grackla, da blossom, da tree-a I love. 
Per Dio ! and da art ! ) So I giva da shove, 
I catcha da birda, I getta da tree, 
I taka to Rosa my wife, and den she — 
She gotta 
In potta! 



84 



Vachel Lindsay 

(Bounding on toward the end of the proceed- 
ings with a bundle over his shoulder, and 
making the rest join in at the high spots.) 

THE HOBOKEN GRACKLE AND THE 

HOBO 

(An Explanation) 

As I went marching, torn-socked, free, [steadily] 
With my red heart marching all agog in front 

of me 
And my throbbing heels 
And my throbbing feet 
Making an impression on the Ho- 

[With energy] 

boken street 
Then I saw a pear-tree, a fowl, a bird, 
And the worst sort of noise an 

. ■!_ Ji [With surprise] 

Illmoiser ever heard! 
Banks — of — poets — round — that — tree — 
All of the Poetry Society but me! 
All a-cackle, addressed it as a [Chatteringly 

grackle _^*^^ parrots] 

Showed me its hackle (that proved it was a fly) 

8s 



Tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, tweet, [Cooingly, yet 

Gosh, what a packed street! tknce] ' 

The Secretary, President and TREASURER 

went byl 

"That's not a grackle," said I to all of him, 

Seething with their poetry, iron-tongued, grim, 

'^That's an English sparrow on that limb!" 

And they all went home 

No more to roam. 

And I watched their unmade poetry 

Ti r [Intetnperately] 

raise up like foam -^ 

And I took my bandanna again on rrx/. , , 

my stick majesty] 

And I walked to the grocery and took my pick 
And I bought crackers, canned [With domes- 

shrimps, corn, Si?f '"' 

Codfish like flakes of snow at morn. 
Buns for breakfast and a fountain-pen 
Laid down change and marched out again 
And I walked through Hoboken, torn-socked, free, 
With my red heart galumphing all agog in front 

of me! 



86 



DIES ILLA: A BIRD OF A MASQUE 

Being a Collaboration by Percy Mackaye, 

Isabel Fiske Conant and Josephine 

Preston Peabody. 

DRAMATIS PERSONiE 

The Crackle (who does not appear at all) 

The Spirit of the Rejection Slip 

The Spirit of Modern Poetry 

Chorus of Elderly Ladies Who Appreciate Poetry 

Chorus of Correspondence, Kindergarten, Grammar, 
High-School and College Classes in Verse- 
Writing 

Chorus of Young Men Running Poetry Magazines 

Chorus of Poetry Critics 

Chorus of Assorted Culture-Hounds 

The Person Responsible for the Poetic Renaissance 
IN America 

The Non-Poetry Writing Public (Composed of two citi- 
zens who have never learned to read or write) 

Semi-Choruses of Magazine Editors and Book-Pub- 
lishers 

Ate, Goddess of Discord 

The Muse 

Time: Next year. Place: Everywhere. Scene: A level 
stretch of monotony. 

THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (Entering 
despairingly) 
Alas — in vain! Yet I have barred the way 
As best I might, that this great horror fall 
Not on the world. Returned with many thanks 
And not because of lack of merit, I 

89 



Have said to twenty million poets . . . nay . . . 
Profane it not, that word ... to twenty million 
Persons who wasted stamps and typewriting 
And midnight oil, to add unto the world 
More Bunk. ... In vain — in vain! 
(She sinks down sobbing.) 

(From right and left of stage enter Semi- 
Choruses of Magazine Editors and Book 
Publishers, tearing their hair rhythmic- 
ally,) 

SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS 

We have mailed their poems back 
To every man and woman-jack 
Who weigh the postman down 
From country and from town; 
But all in vain, in vain. 
They mail them in again! 

SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS 

Though we've sent them flying, 
We are nearly dying, 
From the books of poetry 
Sent by people unto we; 
In vain we keep them off our shelves, 
They go and publish them themselves! 

90 



SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIPS 

All, bravely have ye toiled, my masters, aye, 
And I've toiled with you ... All in vain, in 
vain — 

(Enter, with a proud consciousness of duty 
well done, the Chorus of Correspondence, 
Kindergarten, Grammar, High-School and 
College Classes for Writing Verse. They 
sing Joyously) 

The Day has come that we adore, 
The Day we've all been working for, 
Now babies in their bassinets 
And military school cadets, 
And chambermaids in each hotel 
And folks in slums who cannot spell, 
Professors, butchers, clergymen, 
And every one, have grabbed a pen: 
The Day has come — tra la, tra lee — 
Everybody writes poetry! 

(They do a Symbolic Dance with Type- 
writers, during which enters the Chorus of 
Young Men who Run Poetry Magazines. 
These put on horn-rimmed spectacles and 
chant earnestly as follows) 
91 



CHORUS OF YOUNG MEN WHO RUN POETRY MAGA- 
ZINES 

We're very careful what we put in; 

This magazine is of highest grade; 

If it doesn't appeal to our personal taste 

There's no use sending it, we're afraid; 

We don't like Shelley, we don't like Keats, 

We don't like poets who're tactlessly dead; 

If you write like us there will be no fuss — 

That's the best of verse, when the last word's 
said. . . . (Bursting irrepressibly into 
youthful enthusiasm, and dashing their 
horn spectacles to the ground) 

Yale! Yale! Yale! 

Our Poetry! 

Fine Poetry! 

Nobody Else's Poetry! 

Raw! Raw! Raw! Raw! 

(Enter, modestly , the Person Responsible for 

the Poetic Renaissance in America. There 

are four of him — or her, as the case may 

be — Miss Monroe, Miss Rittenhouse, Mrs, 

Stork, Mr. Braithwaite. The Person 

stands in a row and recites in unison:) 
92 



I've made Poetry 

What it is today; 
Or ... at least . . . 

That's what people say: 
Earnest-minded effort 

Never can be hid; 
The Others think They did it— 

But— I— Did! 

SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP, EDITORS AND 

PUBLISHERS, (faintly:) 
You did? (They rush out.) 
Person Responsible (still modestly) 
Well, SO they say — 
But I have to go away. 
I'm due at a lecture 

I give at three today. (The Person goes out 
in single file, looking at its watch. As 
it does so, there enters a pale and di- 
shevelled girl in Greek robes. It is the 
Muse.) 
muse; 

In Mount Olympus we have heard a noise and 

crying 
As swine that in deep agony are dying, 
A voice of tom-cats wailing, 
A never failing 

93 



Thud as of rolling logs: 

A chattering like frogs, 

And all this noise, unceasing, thunderous, 

Making a horrible fuss. 

Cries out upon my name. 

Oh, what am I, the Muse and giver of Fame, 

So to be mocked and humbled by this use? 

I — I, the Muse! 

(Enter Spirit of Modern Poetry, a lady with 
bobbed hair, clad lightly in horn glasses 
and a sex-complex.) 

SPIRIT OF MODERN POETRY 

You're behind the times; quite narrow. 
Don't you want 
Culture for the masses? 

MUSE 

No; I am Greek; we never did. 
Besides, it isn*t culture. 

CHORUS OF ELDERLY LADIES WHO APPRECIATE 

POETRY, (trotting by two by two on their 

way to a lecture, pause.) 
Oh, how narrow! Oh, how shocking! 
She's no Muse! She must be mocking! 

94 



MUSE (sternly, having lost her temper by this 
time) 
I am a goddess. Trifle not with me. 

ELDERLY LADIES (with resolute tolerance) 
She looks like a pupil of Isadora Duncan, 
But she says she's a goddess; what folly we'd 

be sunk in 
To believe a word she says; she needs broad'- 

ning, we conjecture — 
My dear, come with us to Miss Rittenhouse's 

lecture ! 

MUSE (lifting her arms angrily) 
Ate, my sister! 

ATE, (behind the scenes) I come! 

(Enter from one side, Band of Poets — very 
large — with lyres and wreaths put on 
over their regular clothes. From the 
other side, a chorus of Poetry Critics. At 
their end steals Ate, Goddess of Discord, 
disguised as a Critic by means of horn 
glasses and a Cane. The Poets do not 
see her — or anything but themselves, in- 
deed. They sing obliviously) 
95 



My maiden aunt in Keokuk 

She writes free verse like anything; 
My great-grandmother is in luck, 

She's sold her three-piece work on Spring; 
My mother does Poetic Plays, 

My dad does rhymes while signing checks, 
And my flapper sister — ^we wouldn't have 
missed her — 

She's writing an epic on Sin and Sex — 
The world's as perfect as it can be, 
Everybody writes Poetry! 

CHORUS OF CRITICS, (chanting yet more loudly:) 
The world's not quite as perfect as it yet might 

be, 
Excepting for our brother-critics' poetry! 

The Spirit of Discord now creeps softly out from 
among the Critics.) 

SPIRIT OF DISCORD 

Rash poets, think what you would do — 
There's nobody left you can read it to! 

POETS (aghast) 

We never thought of that! 
An audience, 'tis flat, 

96 



Is our most pressing need, 
To listen to our screed; 
(Each turns to his neighbor) 
Base scribbler, get thee hence 
Or be my audience 1 

Semi-chorus : 

We want to write ourselves! We'll not! 

Semi-chorus : 

But what you write is merely rot! 
Hush up and let me read 
My great, eternal screed! 



ATE (stealthily) Ha, ha! 

(Each Poet now draws a Fountain Pen with 
a bayonet attached, and kills the Poet 
next him, dying himself immediately from 
the wound of the Poet on the other side. 
They fall in neat windrows. There are 
no Poets left. Meanwhile the Non-Poetry- 
Writing Public, two in number, who have 
been shooting crap in a corner, rise up at 
the sound of the fall, take three paces to 
the front, and speak:) 
What's the use o' poetry, anyhow? / always 
say, 'if you wanta say anything you can say it a 
lot easier in prose.' / never wrote no poetry, and 
I get along fine in the hardware business. 

97 



CHORUS OF CRITICS AND CULTURE-HOUNDS, 

(thrilled:) 
Ah, a new Gospel! 
Let us write Reviews 
About it! 

THE SPIRIT OF THE REJECTION SLIP (entering, 
and addressing the Editors and Publishers 
who follow her.) 

Now I shall pass from you. My task comes 
to a close. 

I wing my hallowed way 

To the Fool-Killer's Paradise, and there for aye 

Repose. 

EDITORS AND PUBLISHERS 

Nay, our great helper, nay! 

Leave us not yet, our only comforter! 

We'll need thee still; 

Folks who write poetry 

There's naught on earth can kill! 

(During this the culture-hounds, critics, 
etc., have clustered round the non-poetry- 
WRiTiNG PUBLIC, whispcriug, urging, and 
pushing. It rises and scratches its head 
in a flattered way, and finally says:) 
98 



B'gosh, I do believe, 

Now that you speak of it, I could do just as 

good 
As any of those there fool dead fellers could! 

(The late Non-Poetry-Writing Public are 
both immediately invested with lyres, and 
wreaths which they put on over their 
derby hats.) 

SEMI-CHORUS OF EDITORS (to Spirit of Rejection 
Slip) 
You see? Too late! 

SEMI-CHORUS OF PUBLISHERS 

Who shall escape o'er mastering tragic fate? 
(They go off and sob in two rows in the 
corners, while the rest of the Masque, 
except ATE, who looks at them as if she 
weren't through yet, and the muse, form 
up to do a dance symbolic of One Being 
Born Every Minute, They sing:) 



99 



The Day has come that we adore, 
The Day we've all been working for; 
The Day has come, tra la, tra lee! 
Everybody writes Poetry! 

THE MUSE (unnoticed in the background) 
Farewell. 



100 



«D 10.8 



Arthur Guiterman 

(He recites with appropriate gestures.) 

A TREE WITH A BIRD IN IT: A RHYMED 

REVIEW 

It seems that Margaret Widdemer 
Possessed a Tree with a Bird in it, 

And being human, prone to err, 

Thought 'twould be pleasant to begin it. 

Or christen it, as one might say, 
By asking poets closely herded 

To come around and spend the day 

And sing of what the Tree and Bird did. 

(Poor girl! When next she takes her pen 
Some bromide critic's sure to say, 

"Don't dare do serious work again — 
This stuff is your true metier!") 

No sooner said than done; the bards 
Rush out in quantities surprising. 

And, overflowing four front yards 
They carol till the moon is rising; 



lOI 



With ardor, or, as some say, "pash," 

In song kind or satirical, 
Asking, apparently, no cash. 

They make their offerings lyrical. 

I'd be the first a spear to break 
For Poesy; but this to tackle . . . 

It seems a lot of fuss to make 

About one Tree and one small Crackle. 



IQ2 




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